


How You Finish The Story

by damozel



Category: Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
Genre: Bad Pornography, Chastity Device, Community: femslashex, F/F, Femslash, Historical Inaccuracy, Introspection, POV First Person, POV Multiple, Post-Canon, Writing about writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-21 02:22:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2451119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damozel/pseuds/damozel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>In the frightened rustle of the fair Susannah’s skirts, the debased Magdalen heard only an invitation to sin. ‘The Wicked Duke has done us both a service by removing her chastity belt, and leaving us in this tower to rot,’ thought she with pleasure...</i> </p><p>Maud struggles to find that which is real in the words of her stories. Feelings of hurt and betrayal remain as she and Sue look to the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How You Finish The Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumi/gifts).



> A treat written for Sumi (x_disturbed_x) for the 2014 femslashex. Her prompt speculated about Maud and Susan's future life following the end of the story, and how they might deal with past betrayals.

**Maud**

_In the frightened rustle of the fair Susannah’s skirts, the debased Magdalen heard only an invitation to sin. ‘The Wicked Duke has done us both a service by removing her chastity belt, and leaving us in this tower to rot,’ thought she with pleasure, drinking in her new surroundings. The eerie silence of the abandoned castle somehow added to the gross pleasure of the moment. And the sight of the thick iron chains that hung from the ceiling caused only a chill shiver of delight to run down her spine. ‘This is not a place of punishment and imprisonment, torture and pain. It is a sanctuary in which the two of us might behave as our depravity demands,’ mused she with relish. ‘It is a shame that the Duke had to have her first. But that, alas, is the way of the world.’_

_Susannah was shy, but her blushes were terribly becoming. She rustled her elaborate skirts again, pulling them tightly about herself. The sight was too much for the insatiable Magdalen, and she could suppress her lust no longer. She moved swiftly across the room and, taking her young companion by the chin, placed a hot, lingering kiss on her shocked, parted lips. At first the girl backed away, but soon yielded to her wants, allowing Magdalen to explore her mouth with her desperate tongue._

_Susannah’s cheeks blushed bright as Magdalen withdrew her amorous ministrations. ‘You can feel the fire between your legs, I suppose,’ said the older woman kindly. ‘It is a feeling that is not possible when you have your father’s cold, metal cage against you.’ Susannah was no longer capable of speech, and she produced only an inarticulate groan. ‘I can make it better for you,’ Magdalen continued with a smile. She lifted the girl’s elaborate skirts, and began to explore. When she reached the cumbersome under-things she unbuttoned them slowly, and, taking a moment to loosen her own bodice, slid her fingers carefully inside the damp drawers..._

*** 

I throw down my pen in exasperation. My head falls into my hands, a position that has become most familiar to it in the weeks since she returned. For the hundredth time I ask myself how she can possibly bear it. To look at me each day. To lie with me each night.

Her pearl will never be the girl that she once dreamed of. The soft, pale, cosseted thing that she first fell in love with was lost long ago. If she ever existed at all. In place of her fantasies, Sue is left with the dark, hollow creature I have become. You might think me excessively cruel to myself, but the proof is in the deed. No-one with a true heart could have done as I did.

I sit up a little straighter, and try to refocus my attentions. I would like to parcel up this piece today, and send it along to London. Yet my mind continues to wander. I have been mired by the past for so long. What, now, of the present? 

It once seemed as if "Uncle's" poisons had lit a fire deep within me. A fire that would bring me closer to my Sue. Now, as the stories grow longer and the hours of light grow shorter, I recognise all too painfully that this is not the case. Each scratch of the nib pushes her further from my grasp. These tales have turned my desire into a cold, hard, commercial thing. Something that is not me at all, and something that can certainly never be _us_. They are, in truth, only the imaginings of lascivious old men like Mr Lilley and his friends. The kind of men who duck into shady backstreet bookshops when they think that they cannot be observed. They do not care about the girls who populate these pages. What these women think and feel is of no concern. It only matters that the scenarios are titillating enough, the adjectives colourful enough, the anatomical descriptions lewd enough. 

Should I simply stop? We could quit Briar; begin our lives again. There might be basement rooms to let in the Borough. Or another place where we can go about our little bits of business, away from the prying eyes of the world until the money comes through. Then there is always a small voice in my ear that presses me to continue. A nagging, persistent voice that will not leave me be. It demands that I revise the page. That I strive to tell a better story. If only to attempt to change that which is forever unchangeable. 

Sue is calling me to the dinner table, but I cannot be moved.

Again I take up my pen, and go on with my writing.

**Susan**

‘Ain’t it polite to knock?’ I say as a jest. I am standing before the mirror as Maud enters the room, and I begin to neaten my hair and straighten my dress out of habit. Despite all that has happened, it is difficult not to bob a little curtsey to milady. We are supposed to be all equal now, though it don't always feel like it. She missed dinner this evening, and I know that it would be a mistake to scold her.

She is dressed in one of her old, childish gowns that reaches barely to her ankle, and is handsome as ever. The faded silk would look queer on another. But against her girlish frame it is just right. Her face is smudged with sweat and ink, and she has taken to wearing her old kid skin gloves again. The gloves vex and comfort me in equal measure. 

The smile she gives me masks a kind of bewilderment. It is an expression that she wears often of late. And I fancy that I know what lies beneath it. She wonders how I can forgive her for what she did. How I can ever trust her again. My Maudie seems to have forgotten that I am as much a sinner as she. That I followed Gentleman to Briar, thinking only of the money, and my cock-crow of victory across that Borough when I returned with my thousands. She has forgotten that I held her, and touched her, and loved her for all I was worth. Then led her like a lamb to the slaughter just the same. She seems to have forgotten, too, of that other crime in which I had no small share. The one that left Gentleman flat-out in a pool of his own blood, and poor Mrs Sucksby dangling on the end of that dreadful rope. 

Maud beckons towards the couch, and I know that she has something important to say to me. I sit primly at first, but my back hurts something rotten. So I settle in beside her, and rest my head on her lap. I think that she will kiss me, but instead she flaps some loose leaves before my face. I recognise the spidery, incomprehensible web of her hand-writing and, with a jolt of dismay, I guess that she is to read to me.

When I first learned who she was, _what_ she was, the forbidden words thrilled me. Then, as the weeks passed by, a sad feeling grew up in the pit of my stomach. I am almost ashamed to admit it. She will think me a naive, gauche child. And perhaps you will too. But here it is straight. I do not like the hours that she spends poring over the lives of those other girls. I cannot stand the thought of the likes of Mr Lilly— _Old Nick take him_ —handling such precious things.

It is as if she can hear my thoughts. She strokes my hair tenderly, like she is calming a colic-plagued babe. Then she carefully clears her throat.

The notes of her speech ring true and clear as ever. But I soon realise that this story is not like all the others. She tells of a young girl raised in a lunatic asylum. Beaten and abused by the matrons until she hardly knows what she is. Then comes a great change. The child is taken to an out-of-the-way country house, and left to her Uncle’s foul devices. Maud winces as she recalls the sensational events that occurred there. The everyday obscenities and humiliations. So do I. At last she comes onto more familiar ground. She speaks of a gentleman art expert, and a new maidservant. Of clandestine meetings, and whispered professions of love. She is almost weeping by the time she tells of the great betrayal.

‘This is our story,’ I stammer out at last. 

‘Not all of it,’ says she. ‘Just the part that was written by others.’

I am confused, because I can see that it is only her writing on the page. Then the penny drops, and I realise what she means.

‘There’s plenty of space for the rest of the story.’ Her smile is playful and cunning now. ‘The part that we will write together is still to come.’ 

She spreads out a fresh sheet of foolscap, as if she would begin there and then. Lucky for me writing ain't all that's on her mind. She stoops down to my level, and finally leans into my embrace.


End file.
